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Narrative Summary
Interview with Lori Lampert by Samantha Fomera
Lori Lampert was interviewed in her office at Schweitzer United Methodist Church on April 6, 2011, by Samantha Fomera. Lori is what most people call her, but some of the little ones around the church call her Pastor Lori.
Lori was born in the 1950s in New York to G. and D. Firth. She has three siblings, each of whom was born in a different city in New York. Obviously, her family moved quite a bit when she was a young child. She went to elementary school in Minnesota until sixth grade when she moved to Alabama with her family. The family also moved to Texas for about two years; however, she has lived most of her adult life in Missouri as she has been here since the late 1980s. Currently, she is 54 years old, and she is proud of it.
B. Lampert is Lori’s husband. He works in a physician position as the Director of Pain Management at St. John’s Hospital.[1] Lori and her husband are proud parents of three children.
Lori has been blessed to travel to many states. She went to Europe for six weeks with a couple of families and toured 13 different countries when she was 13 years old. She has been to Italy, Greece, England, Great Britain, France, Columbia, and several Caribbean islands. She has also been to Haiti four times in the last 20 months.
As for education, Lori has excelled. She graduated high school in Alabama in the early 1970s. She then graduated from the University of Alabama and Birmingham School of Nursing. Furthermore, she had two years of clinical pastoral training to become a chaplain for St. John’s Hospital in Missouri. In the early 2000s, she began her training at St. Paul’s School of Theology in Missouri to become an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church.
The religion that Lori claims as her own is Christianity, and specifically United Methodist. As a child, she was very active in the church. In the interview, Lori mentioned that the first thing her parents did when they moved to a new place was search for a new church home. This idea from her parents that “this is what the family does on Sundays,” carried into Lori’s own life. She sang in the church choir and was president of the United Methodist Youth Fellowship group at her church. She was not only in the church on Sundays, but usually on Wednesdays and a couple other days of the week too. Being a part of the church from a young age, Lori found that the church family was where her closest friendships formed.
When talking about significant events in her spiritual journey, Lori immediately recalled the trip to Europe she took when she was 13. Growing up in the church, she heard all of the stories about the Apostle Paul. Being able to see that there was a real place called Rome where Paul worked was a huge marker in her life. Everything became real to her after that trip. Another pivotal time in her life was when Lori was a school nurse at Parkview High School. She describes it as a crucial moment in her faith journey. During this time, she was dealing with broken people, and the opportunity to be able to offer the gospel of Christ to them, often without saying a word, was a phenomenal experience for her. In the early 2000s, Lori received her call to ministry. From there, she has been in for the journey, going wherever God leads her. Lori talked about never having a mountaintop experience. She says that there was never a time when she didn’t know God and didn’t have him in her life; however, she admits she hasn’t always been the follower that she wants to be.
Religion for Lori is an everyday experience. She makes time in her mornings for devotion and prayer. Often, she is up by 5:30 a.m., and begins to mosey her way through the morning. She studies the Scripture, is passionate about prayer, and reads a lot. She enjoys reading about everything—old theologies, new theologies, leadership ideas, and anything else she feels will help in her spiritual growth. Recently, she has been working to learn and experience new acts of mercy, furthering what she has already experienced, which has been very Wesleyan[2] in nature. She talked about these new acts of mercy with her experiences in Haiti, emphasizing that she learns more and more with each experience.
As mentioned previously, she has been to Haiti four times. Two years ago, she never imagined that she would be this involved with Haiti. She had the country on her heart before it came on to everyone’s radar after the recent earthquake. She works with an organization called Free the Kids, but in the Haitian village of Espwa, it is referred to as Project Hope. (Espwa means “hope” in Creole, the native Haitian language.) There are over 600 kids who live in the community, where they have access to healthcare and education. The first time, Lori went by herself. The second time, she and her husband went; he worked in the clinic. During the most recent trips, Lori has taken groups from her church to do whatever needs to be done there. Lori emphasized that they just go down to Haiti to “do life with them.” They have done everything from painting to playing with kids; they have helped plant gardens and visited prisons. Seeing so many people crowded into the prisons and so many children that are displaced breaks Lori’s heart. Lori aches for the children who have no one to hold them on their lap or to have one-on-one time with someone who cares. There seems to be mile after mile of pain in the area. However, amongst all of this, Lori can see potential for how Haiti can grow; Espwa is a model of how Haiti can learn how to fix and take care of themselves. During the interview, Lori dwelt on the injustice of the prisons, where many people are crowded into small cells. She remembers Christ’s words to “visit the prisoner,” and for the first time in her life, she is able to make that idea a special part of her journey. After visiting the prisons in Haiti, her heart went out to the prisoners, and again she found herself caring about those who were not cared for. Every day Lori wakes up remembering Haiti and praying for the people. She has enveloped herself in the community and has already planned two more trips to Haiti in the coming months.
While tending to her work in Haiti, she must balance it with her calling as a pastor. She is the lead associate pastor of Schweitzer United Methodist Church (UMC). She is challenged all the time by what she has been called to do. She loves that she gets to train and lead people to follow Christ every day. Her primary responsibilities lie in administration and oversight of the staff. Another primary responsibility is pastoral care. She also serves on worship teams and many other teams that the church has. Lori does most of the hospital visits for the church, cares for those involved with the Stephen’s Ministry program, and helps those going through tough times. Lori says that being a pastor is fun but exhausting. There is not a boring moment because the work changes from day-to-day. The job causes her to be completely dependent on the Holy Spirit. She says, “it causes you to look deeply at your own faith and hold up the mirror to your own face [. . . .] It reveals to yourself your own shortcomings and your own weaknesses [. . . .] It’s living your faith under a microscope, when you’re in leadership.”
She has been an ordained pastor for only four years, but has worked at Schweitzer UMC a total of 11 years. At Schweitzer, Lori has never had to deal with the hardships of being a woman in ministry—there has been a woman on staff at Schweitzer UMC for generations. So, within the Schweitzer community, she has not felt restricted in any way because of her gender. The church’s senior pastor believes in having a balanced pastoral care team, so having a woman on staff is crucial in his mind. Women have been ordained in the United Methodist church since the 1950s; therefore, Lori has never known a time when women were not allowed to be pastors. The most resistance she has ever gotten has been in ecumenical situations. When she was a hospital chaplain, she sometimes walked into a roomful of people who do not believe in women being ministers; they were not very receptive to her authority. However, she says that she brings an air of authority with her now that she is older. She also affirms that most people are used to seeing United Methodist women in leadership positions within the community. Lori said that, to her, the topic of women and ministry is off limits for debate because most people aren’t willing to be persuaded. She fully believes that having women in ministry is a biblical concept. As long as her ministry is bearing fruit, she intends on remaining a pastor, because she sees ordination as a lifetime commitment to the church.
The most significant part of Lori’s life is that she is totally and completely in love with Jesus Christ. This is the foundational part of her life—everything else stems from it. Working in pastoral care, Lori has the privilege of watching lives be changed and seeing hope, health, and prayer be restored. She also has a huge concern for the people who she calls the “de-churched.” These are individuals who have left the church because the institution has neglected or hurt them in some way, most likely during a tough time in their lives. Being a part of the healing process is something Lori loves to do, and it is a huge part of what she does as a pastor and as a Christian.
When asked what she wishes or longs for most in her spiritual life, Lori responded saying, “I just want the Kingdom of God to be realized on this planet.” She wants Christ to infiltrate this broken world and restore it, and feels any part that she can play in this is significant. She said that “kingdom living happens today.” She doesn’t want to live only for the day that Christ comes back to restore the planet; instead, she wants to do her part now to bring that to earth today.
Lori’s advice to the younger generations is that life is good. She emphasized that life may not always be easy or simple, but overall, one should have a good, blessed life. She also said that everyone has potential. Lori admits that the world that she grew up in is much different than the world that the Gen-X and Gen-Yers are living in. The world that the young people live in now, she said, was essentially science fiction in her younger days. She knows that it is hard to live in a world where drugs are in the locker next to you and violence surrounds you. But no matter what, life is still good.
To close the interview, Lori said that she has not figured everything out, and that she is incredibly excited for what will come as she remains obedient to God. Even though she is growing older, she knows that God isn’t finished with her yet. God is still using her, and that excites her.
Missouri State University Spring 2011 Religious Lives of Ozarks Women
[1] St. John’s Hospital was renamed Mercy Hospital in 2012.
[2] Relating to the teachings of John Wesley, an early leader of the Methodist church.